


Coal

by everybodyknowseverybodydies



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, cop!Di/vigilante!Quentin AU, crime happens mostly offscreen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4109554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodyknowseverybodydies/pseuds/everybodyknowseverybodydies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was one thing she had learned by now, it was that no matter the occasion, whenever a crime had been committed, Quentin Lance was sure to be there with a camera when they showed up. Never mind that he was always conveniently photographing the architecture or the landscape nearby – he was useful, even if he was a bit of a pain in the neck most of the time.<br/>Well. A huge pain in the neck, all of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coffee and Other Disasters

If there was one thing she had learned by now, it was that no matter the occasion, whenever a crime had been committed, Quentin Lance was sure to be there with a camera when they showed up. Never mind that he was always conveniently photographing the architecture or the landscape nearby – he was useful, even if he was a bit of a pain in the neck most of the time.

Well. A huge pain in the neck, all of the time.

“What were you taking a picture of this time?” Dinah didn’t even bother glancing at him as she brushed past, studying the shattered window and the body slung halfway through the opening.

He shrugged, giving her a sheepish grin. “…birds?”

“Right. Lance? Do yourself a favour and get better at lying so I can at least feel better about covering for you.”

“I’m not lying,” he protested as he trailed after her.

She gave him a look. “Your lens cap is still on; you haven’t been using that camera.”

He spluttered for a moment, then gave up. “Okay, fine, I thought I heard something and came to check it out because I figured you’d be around eventually.”

“I’m flattered,” she said dryly, crouching in front of the body. “Hanging around crime scenes just to see me?”

“Sounds like someone else we know.” Galloway smirked, coming over. “You know. Like… the vigila–”

Quentin coughed. Even without looking, Dinah was pretty sure he was wearing his best ‘innocent’ expression. “Agent Risky doesn’t do daytime stuff, and besides, I’m not the only one he talks to. Tyson got those phone calls from him, remember?”

“Agent Risky?” Quentin mumbled.

She looked up, eyebrows raised. “Hey, he never gave me a name; I have to call him something. You got a better name for a masked man who likes danger?”

“…well, no, but –”

“Then for now he's Agent Risky, Lance.” She rolled her eyes, standing again. “If I find out he has a name I'll be sure to let you know, but he has nothing to do with why we're here.” To Galloway, she continued, “Looks like whoever she was, she was dead before she got chucked through the window; there’s not enough blood.”

He nodded, hands sliding into his pockets. “Mmhmm. Sharp as always, Dinah.”

“Are we on first name basis now, Jeff?” She gave him half a grin and swept past him. “Lance, with me; we’re going to take a look inside.”

Quentin hurriedly adjusted the neckstrap of his camera and bounded after her – his footsteps beat an unmistakable rhythm behind her as they disappeared into the shop. _Scuffscuff dmp, scuffscuff dmp_. She’d told him before to pick up his feet when he walked because it was so loud, but if he listened to anyone in the world, she was positive it wasn’t her. “If she wasn’t killed here, there has to be something that tells us where she was killed, right?”

Dinah bit back a smirk and a smart comment. “Yes, Lance; that’s why we’re looking.” Well, at least she tried.

“Yeesh. They had to do this in the coffee shop?” He picked his way around the broken glass on the floor. “They broke in, not out.”

She nodded slowly. “Which makes our friend in the window look staged. If they’d wanted it to look like she fell through, her head would be on this side.”

“Hang on –” He waved her over, studying something caught on the edge of the glass. “There’s some cloth snagged here.”

“Don’t touch the evidence!” She grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back. “Good eye, but really. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“Sorry, sorry…”

Inspecting the cloth, she called through the window, “Galloway! When is the coroner set to get here and has anyone touched her yet?”

“Soon and nope, not yet. Your ‘Agent Risky’ might have though.”

Quentin cleared his throat. “Uh, is that really what you’re calling him?”

“I still don’t hear any better suggestions,” Dinah glanced up at him. “Look, I’ll tell him to get a name next time we bump into each other if it bothers you that much.”

“What? No, it doesn’t bother me – I just was thinking, you know, that sounds a little… cartoony… and he’s not a cartoon so, uh.”

“Cartoony, gotcha. I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Drake!”

“That’d be Lieutenant Drake to you, Lance.”

* * *

She sat down on the roof of the warehouse, drumming her fingers on her knees and tapping her toes as she watched the thin trails of headlights weaving through the city below. If he wasn’t up here soon, she told herself, she’d go home.

She should’ve brought a jacket.

“Lieutenant.”

Dinah didn’t bother looking up. “Hello to you too.”

“You want my assistance with the coffee shop case.”

She sighed and waved a hand. “You seem to know things; information is always appreciated. Do you have a name yet or do I have to just keep calling you ‘guy in the mask’?”

“I hear you’re calling me… ‘Agent Risky’ nowadays.”

“Mm. Tried to. I was informed that sounded too ‘cartoony’ by your biggest fan.”

“I don’t have fans.”

She snorted. “You don’t do the sounding-mysterious thing very well, you know. Really, I think this guy hangs out where there’s trouble because he’s looking for you.”

He sat beside her, staring somewhere out across the skyline, and said nothing.

She shifted her jaw and elbowed him, perhaps a little harder than she intended. “Are you going to help or not, Agent Risky?”

“Don’t call me that and I will.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to call you?” He was silent again, which she took as an indication that he hadn’t come up with a name that satisfied him yet. Dinah rolled her eyes and turned away. “Alright. I don’t care. I’ll keep making up names for you.”

“I’ll see you here again tomorrow night, lieutenant,” he said abruptly.

“With information on the coffee shop case?”

He stood. “Yes.” The vigilante lingered beside her a moment, then crouched and wrapped his hooded jacket around her shoulders. “Bring that back, just keep it ‘til you stop shivering,” he said begrudgingly, and before she could turn to yell at him for handing her something she’d have to use as evidence to identify him, he was gone.

…and she wasn’t shivering, anyway.

* * *

“Where did you get that?” Galloway demanded when she dropped the jacket on the captain’s desk. She shrugged and managed a vague mumbly noise, which wasn’t technically lying because it wasn’t technically answering either.

The captain raised his eyebrows. “This for the vigilante case?”

“Yes.” Dinah folded her arms.

“Fill out the paperwork and I’ll put it with the folder,” he said, handing her the form.

Damn. ‘Retrieved from’ - _yes sir I was doing that thing you said not to and meeting up with this guy on a roof and he gave me his jacket…_

“So why did you bring in your masked boyfriend’s clothes?” She looked up. Galloway was leaning on her desk, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Are you breaking up with him?”

“What? I’m not dating anybody,” she hissed. “I found it.”

“At your house?”

“No, on - on Hill Street, now shut up.”

He started to leave, then turned back to her with the faint grin he usually reserved for when he'd caught onto something during a case. “You want to get coffee later?”

Caught off guard, she blinked at him with her mouth half-open. “Wh- er – I don’t drink coffee,” she mumbled finally, knocking the paper cup marked ‘espresso’ awkwardly into the trash by her desk. Galloway looked down at the half-full cup slowly soaking the crumpled papers in the bin.

There was an uncomfortable silence for what felt to Dinah like forever but was probably closer to thirty seconds. She was sure her face was red, or at the very least her ears, and she gave him a weak, embarrassed smile. “Well,” he said at last, “what would you want then?”

“Um.” She shook her head. “Can I get back to you on that? I have to fill out this paperwork. For the jacket. From the vigilante.”

“Yeah – yeah, sure.” He coughed once and disappeared off to his desk.

As soon as he was gone Dinah shoved the paperwork to the side and dropped her head into her hands with a groan. _‘I don’t drink coffee’?_ Why did she say that? It certainly wasn’t that he was unattractive – Galloway had the kind of chiseled jaw and piercing eyes that made a girl’s knees go weak – but… But. She shook her head and rubbed at her eyes. Later. She’d deal with Galloway later.

Right now, there was a girl dead. She reached back to tighten her ponytail and picked up the phone. “Dinah Drake, SCPD. I was told you’d have identification on the girl from the coffee shop by now?”

* * *

Dinah remembered her own jacket this time. She shoved her hands into her pockets and kicked at a piece of a broken bottle. It skittered away and teetered on the edge of the roof. She heard him before she saw him. “Your fanboy was right; Agent Risky is a little too superhero for you. I’m thinking something more like… The Unofficial and Probably Illegal Consultant.”

“Too wordy.” He’d acquired a new jacket of his own, she saw when she turned around. The black mask was still the same. “Here.” He handed her an envelope.

“Is this –?”

“Yes.” He paused. “…and the jacket?”

“Well, actually, it’s back at the precinct as evidence,” she said dryly. “Thanks for the help.”

The man put out his arm to stop her. “If I’m identified, you lose your ‘unofficial consultant,’ lieutenant.”

“You think I don’t know that? I’m stalling the process as much as I can, but after this case is closed I still have a job to do, and part of that is ensuring that people in this city don’t have to worry about men in masks running around doing whatever the hell they want.”

“Emmeline Chase,” he said abruptly.

She stopped. “I know who she is.”

“Age nineteen, lived at home with her mother, worked as a waitress at BJ’s.”

“Things I learned from the morgue.”

“And did the morgue tell you what was taken from the coffee shop?”

Dinah turned her head. “What?”

He lowered his arm. “I need the jacket back first.”

“I can’t take it back; at this point that would be stealing evidence,” she told him. “I’m sorry but it’s as good as gone. If you're going to be a vigilante you shouldn’t give things you want to keep to police officers.”

“Then I can’t help you anymore. That envelope should be enough to get you on the right track though.”

She looked down. His tone of voice said otherwise. “I’ve taken care of plenty without you,” she said, but when she looked up again, he was gone. Exhaling, she opened the envelope to see what exactly he’d given her.

A single folded sheet of paper was tucked inside. She braced herself for disappointment and opened it.

_Emmeline Chase_ , read the scrap of someone’s planner. Dinah swore and tried to avoid getting fingerprints all over it. She dropped both envelope and paper into a plastic bag. In the dim light and through the bag, she could just make out what followed the name. _Red. Oak, 9:15._


	2. In Which Quentin Has a Bad Day

Quentin stared at the list, drumming his pen on the table and chewing his sandwich slowly. “Lancelot,” he mumbled around a mouthful of ham and pepperjack cheese. “Nnn… been done. Tin – Tin Soldier? Sounds like a children’s book…” He swallowed and crossed both names off the list, the corners of his mouth twitching at the next one. “The Unofficial and Probably Illegal Consultant. Yeah, still too wordy.” Taking another bite, he drew a line through it.

Of all the problems he’d expected to run into when he put on the mask, picking a name was not one of them. Maybe he’d just tell her to call him ‘Larry’ and be done with it. Except not Larry. Something like… hmm. What was a name that sounded cool but also not ridiculously uncommon? Like –

He was startled out of his thoughts by the phone ringing, and he knocked his chair over when he leapt up to get it. “He-” He choked on the bite of sandwich he’d been chewing, hitting his chest a couple times before wheezing, “Hello?”

“…are you done now or should I call an ambulance instead?”

“Drake? I mean – Lieutenant?”

“No, it’s the other police officer with your phone number, Lance. How are you at creating distractions?”

“Um,” he said. “You know, funny story about distractions –”

“Alright, we can work on that. Come meet me at Mitchell’s Oak in,” here she paused as if looking for a clock, “say, ten minutes?”

“Can I –”

“Great, thanks, don’t waste time because I’m using my lunch break for this.” Before he could protest, she’d already hung up.

He set the phone down and sighed. His list could wait, and as long as he was back at the studio in time for the two o’clock appointment, it’d be fine, he thought.

* * *

Drizzling rain had begun to fall by the time he got to Mitchell’s Oak, and he was regretting not having at least a hood. Drake, on the other hand, had come prepared. “What took you so long?” she demanded when she saw him, smacking him with the handle of her umbrella. Okay, prepared and irritated.

“I left as soon as I hung up,” he tried to protest, but she was having none of it.

“Look, just – get over here and act like we’re talking.”

“We are talking, aren’t we?”

“Shut up.” She ran a hand through her hair, shifting her jaw, and if he didn’t know better he might have thought she was nervous about something.

“What are we doing exactly?”

“You’re standing there. I’m waiting for a page that will let me know I can check out the security cameras from around here.” She grabbed his sleeve and yanked him over. “Stop looking around.”

“I… still don’t understand what we’re doing here.”

She looked at him for a moment, expression inscrutable. Her mouth twisted slightly. “Your idol gave me something that gives me reason to believe the girl from the coffee shop met someone here.”

“Wait really? When?”

“Recently.” She wouldn’t say anything more after that, so he shut up. She did hand him her umbrella as she crouched by one of the tree roots, though; he couldn’t tell if he should be glad for the protection from the rain or insulted that she’d called him here to hold things for her. “Lance,” she said abruptly, “if you were going to kidnap and kill a nineteen-year-old girl –”

“Hey now –”

“– why would you do it?”

He blinked at her. “I… wouldn’t…?”

“But if you were,” she repeated, staring at something in the dirt he couldn’t see. “Nineteen years old. Waitress. In school. No boyfriend, no girlfriend.”

“The coffee shop makes it pretty apparently premeditated, too.” When she looked up sharply, he hurried to add, “Doesn’t it?”

“Yes… but why? What kind of threat could this girl possibly have posed to anyone?”

He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Well,” he started, “did she have any kind of financial problems? People she owed money or something maybe?”

She shook her head. “Apparently the only place she borrowed money was student loans.”

“What about the coffee shop?” Quentin asked suddenly. “Why was she there?”

Rubbing at her eyes, the lieutenant let out a breath. “Well, you saw it; it looks like a break-in. But the owners are saying nothing is missing.”

“…so is something there that wasn’t before?” She went so still he started to worry if she’d stopped breathing. “Er – Drake?”

Her pager went off. She stood and took her umbrella back from him. “I don’t know. Thanks for coming. Go… go take pictures or something. Stay out of trouble, Lance.” With that, she gave him a nod and left.

“Wait – what about distractions? You said on the phone – Drake! What am I supposed to be doing?” he yelled after her, but if she heard him she didn’t turn around.

Stay out of trouble, he thought. Right, sure. Well, if he wanted to do that, he’d have to get his jacket back from wherever she’d taken it.

* * *

As valiant as his efforts were, the woman behind the counter was not impressed. She snapped her gum and stared at him with a slightly bored expression. “So,” she said, “Dinah sent you down here to get a jacket.”

“Yes, my jacket.”

“Which she… ‘mistakenly’ brought here, and also ‘mistakenly’ said was the vigilante’s.”

“Ye- _es_ ,” he said, voice dropping uncertainly at the look she gave him.

“Those are two pretty big mistakes,” the woman noted dryly. “Especially considering we don’t have a jacket at all in the vigilante’s bin.”

Quentin opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Uh – you don’t?”

“No.” She popped her gum at him again. “You might want to talk to Dinah again and see what really happened to your jacket.”

He managed a round of nervous laughter as he backed towards the door. “Yeah, I’ll do that, definitely, thanks for your help –”

As soon as he was outside his smile dropped. He dragged his hands down his face, digging his fingernails into his jaw. Great. Now who knew where the stupid thing was? All because he’d… Argh. She’d just looked like she needed it – alright that was a lie; she had looked cold, yes, but he also might ( _might_ ) have been a little rash and gone too far with the _being-a-gentleman-to-make-sure-she-knows-I’m-not-a-criminal_ plan. Might.

He made his way back to the studio, grabbing a towel out of the bathroom to dry his hair, and paused when he saw the light on the answering machine blinking. Once, twice, three times. Three messages? Why would he – oh. Oh. He had a session scheduled for that afternoon. He tossed the towel aside and pressed play as he ran to find his calendar.

“Mr. Lance, I’m here but your door is locked,” came a woman’s irritated voice. Children were chattering in the background as she continued, “I’ll wait here a little longer, but it’s raining now and I’m going to have to get home soon.”

The next message was from the same woman, telling him not to bother rescheduling her. He swallowed and put his calendar away. One less thing to worry about, he tried to tell himself as he pressed another button to listen to the last message.

“Lance, listen.” He perked up a little. “If you’re there and just not picking up, first of all _stop ignoring the phone when I’m trying to talk to you_. Secondly, I need you to make your obsession with Mr. Mask useful and figure out where he’s likely to be, say… now-ish. And tell me.” She hesitated, then sighed, "...please."

Quentin grumbled a little at the name, checking his list to make sure it wasn’t on there and dialing to call Drake back. It was still too light out for a rooftop rendezvous, but maybe he could make something up about patterns and meet her somewhere it wouldn’t be suspicious for a cop to be talking to a guy in a mask and a hood.

And then maybe he could find out what she’d done with his jacket. Probably not though. Today was decidedly not turning out to be his best.


	3. "Captain Hoodie" Gets Yelled At

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the thanks in the world and then some are due to Abby (the-ships-to-rule-them-all.tumblr.com), who put up with me crying in her inbox and suggested that since one-shots are more my forte I try doing this AU as a series of one-shots rather than thinking of it as all one thing. My reaction was essentially 8O "I can do that??" and apparently I can so yayyy thank you Abby!

_The bright blue mask filled the screen. It tilted slowly to the left, calculating. “What is that?” She jerked back from the screen when the mask moved suddenly. “Galloway -!"_

 _“What is it? Drake?” He hurried over just in time to see the figure in the blue mask hold up its note to the camera –_ I want the vigilante. _“Oh,” Galloway said softly. “Pretty sure that’s your territory.”_

“Why should I trust you?” She was shouting, and he was trying to calm her down, but in her red-tinted vision she couldn’t find any reason to care.

“You do trust me,” the man protested, dark eyes glinting behind the mask.

Dinah shoved him hard enough to send him staggering back a couple steps. “You don’t know that! You couldn’t possibly know that! That girl _died_ because of you! You thought just because you wouldn’t help that we’d have no way of finding out what was on those security tapes?”

He held up his hands. “Lieutenant, please.”

“Please what? I’m not the one attracting lunatics,” she snapped.

“Stop. Calm down. You do trust me.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?” Dinah spun to face him, fingernails embedded into her palms.

He gestured. “You haven’t shot me yet.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “No. I haven’t. But you know what? I’m not entirely convinced I shouldn’t rule that out if your pretentious battles between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are going to get people killed.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

“Prove it then.” She folded her arms. “When you find the blue mask, take me with you.”

“What? I can’t do that –”

“I’m not a civilian, Captain Hoodie,” she hissed. She saw him tense.

He turned away and shook his head. “I know. But I can’t.”

“Why not? So you can play at being a hero? Listen, whoever you really are, you are not prepared to take out a murderer without collateral damage, and if you think I’m going to stand by and let that happen –”

“Lieutenant. I’m not going to bring someone who has the potential to end up as ‘collateral damage,’” he said without looking at her.

She snapped her mouth shut and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. _Listen to me!_ “That’s sweet and all, but I’m more than capable of handling myself.”

“Don’t make me do that. Please.”

“No. You’re going to take me with you.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s either that or I arrest you.” He was silent. Dinah waited until her jaw began to ache from grinding her teeth (when had she started that?) and reached for his arm. “Fine.”

Jerking away, he mumbled, “Yeah. Fine. I’ll give you a call.”

“Good.” She pointed at him. “And if you don’t, you damn well better hope I don’t find you.”

He waved a hand and said nothing as he walked away, head bowed. She waited until he was gone to look down at the crescent moon indentations in her palms, and to realize that her hands were trembling.

* * *

Dinah yanked her fingers through her hair, glancing over at Galloway’s desk before reaching for her paper cup. She skimmed over the reports from the surveillance around Mitchell’s Oak – the oldest tree in Starling; it was as good a place as any for a meeting. Apparently the blue mask thought so too. Bell and Wilson had gone through the footage from every camera they could find near the tree, and while there were plenty of shots of Emmeline Chase walking up to the tree and looking around, there was a skip on the tapes. One moment the redheaded girl was standing there with her hands in her pockets, the next frame she was gone.

She took another swallow of coffee, brow knit. Wilson had noticed something else, he wrote. The dark grey sedan at the edge of the frame in one of the angles disappeared too. He promised he was working on having it identified.

At the moment, though, ‘dark grey sedan’ wasn’t very helpful. There were too many of those on the streets to count.

“Something the matter, Drake?”

She didn’t look up from the reports. “Pick up your feet, Lance.”

“I was quiet that time!” he protested, leaning on her desk.

“You walk like an entire herd of elephants. What are you here for?”

“Because I’m still confused about our meeting yesterday? Who am I supposed to be distracting and why?”

She looked up and set her cup down. “You’re a backup plan right now.”

The photographer spluttered. “I’m your _backup plan_?”

“That’s what I said, yes. Don’t worry about it. With luck you won’t need to do anything. Why are you really here?”

 _“I’m your backup plan?”_ She sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “For what? Why am I –”

“So, Lance, how’s the picture-taking coming?” Dinah interrupted him with a quiet ‘ahem.’

Quentin narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Are you changing the subject?”

“Trying to.”

“Can you at least tell me why you even need a backup plan?”

“No.” She stood up, hands on her hips. “If that’s all, I do still have a homicide here.” He still looked a little put out, but at least he wasn’t arguing anymore.

Thank God. She’d done enough yelling last night. And for all his tendencies to show up in exactly the wrong places and make a general nuisance of himself, Lance usually meant well. Which was why getting him to utilize his skill for being in the wrong place was emergencies-only Plan C, she reminded herself. Plan B was herself - she could probably come up with something to lure the blue mask out enough for her to cosh him on the head and cuff him.

The vigilante was Plan A.


End file.
